This week we continue our talk with August Watters, who in addition to being an accomplished mandolinist, guitarist and banjo pickers, is also an Associate Professor at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA. This week August describes his involvement with the Boston Bluegrass Union and their effort to present bluegrass instructional opportunities to young people.

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We have posted several times recently about Berklee College Of Music’s acceptance of traditional stringed instruments like banjo and mandolin as principal instruments of study at the school. One of the architects of this change was August Watters, Associate Professor at Berklee, and an accomplished mandolinist outside of his work teaching Ear Training at Berklee. Along with String Department Chair Matt Glaser and Ensemble Professor David Hollender, Watters worked for several years to help convince the administration of the need to embrace these instruments to keep faith with Berklee’s commitment to offer serious college training in all styles of commercial music.

On Wednesday, February 1, August will perform in a faculty recital at Berklee, featuring a mix of bluegrass, swing, jazz, Celtic, klezmer and Brazilian Choro music. Joining him for this concert will be a number of Berklee faculty members and noted northeastern mandolinists in a program largely involving music written and/or arranged by Watters. He tells us that he means for the recital to be at times serious and respectful, and at other times irreverent, playful and fun.

“The concert reflects not only diverse mandolin styles, but also different ways of approaching a mandolin ensemble — from a lead sheet approach where everyone contributes to the arrangement, and nothing is written down, to a completely written-out approach. Most tunes are hybrids of the two extremes: written arrangements with room for improvisation in the solo sections as well as the accompaniments, or lead sheets with most parts improvised, and only a few ensemble figures notated.” (more…)